It's all been downhill for Eddie Murphy these past eight
or nine years career-wise, and he's still trying to make a crowd-
pleasing blockbuster to relaunch his 80's stardom. If the crowd I
was with is any indication, Murphy has succeeded. God only knows
if the rest of the country's audiences will feel the same way, but the
packed mall crowd I saw THE NUTTY PROFESSOR with laughed
so hard at the surface-level gags that I missed half the dialogue.

What do you say about a movie like this, where fart
jokes abound and the word "ass" is used every couple minutes
for laughter? That it's the kind of movie most of us could write in
our sleep if given the premise, a lightweight and predictable comedy
that the brainless masses laugh out loud at over and over. I'd almost
have to lump myself in with the "brainless masses" demographic
because I succumbed to a lot of the cheap laughs in THE NUTTY
PROFESSOR, although not loud or long enough to drown out any
dialogue.

Murphy plays Sherman Klump, a four-hundred pound
college professor who has stumbled onto a formula that will change
his molecular structure and turn him into a slim love god. So after
the customary fat person sight gags (Murphy's stomach erasing
the chalkboard as he writes, Murphy trying to sit in a chair, etc.)
and the introduction of the love interest, a beautiful grad student
(Jada Pinkett, looking ten times better here than in A LOW DOWN
DIRTY SHAME), Murphy drinks his potion and reaps the immediate
benefits ("I can see my dick!").

I'm sure you've heard the expression that inside every
fat person there's a skinny person waiting to get out. THE NUTTY
PROFESSOR assumes that skinny person is a completely different
alter-ego from the person's usual personality. At his correct body
weight, Murphy becomes Buddy Love, a brash, over-confident
loudmouth with sex on his mind. High testosterone levels are an
apparent side effect of taking the potion, causing Murphy to act
on his feelings for Pinkett.

This being a cut-rate sitcom, of course, he doesn't tell
her that Love and Klump are one and the same, he pulls the old
Clark Kent-Superman thing, having her know both personalities
and having them talk about each other but never interact. And
Pinkett doesn't have a clue as to what is going on because Murphy's
voice is completely different as Love than Klump. His Love voice is
much higher-pitched than Klump, making me wonder if we're
supposed to think his voice lost weight too. Either way, the voice
mystery is never explained, but you're probably not supposed to
stop and think about any of this.

As another sitcom gimmick, Murphy's potion wears off
after a certain amount of time, and always in the exact wrong place
at the wrong time. That way people can stare as his lip suddenly
swells to several times its size or his foot becomes twice as big
because, besides being Murphy's comeback vehicle, THE NUTTY
PROFESSOR also showcases some admirable special effects from
Tom Baker, the man who turned Michael Jackson into a freak in
the Thriller video (which took a lot of effort, believe me). But while
Murphy was sitting in that makeup chair for five hours everyday,
someone else should have been working on creating a decent,
cliche-free script.

The movie continues with Pinkett trying to choose
between Klump and Love, along with Klump having to pitch his
idea to millionaire donor James Coburn (also in ERASER). We
also get a couple of extended flatulence scenes with the Klump
family, where Murphy plays five different overweight roles, and
some TV inspiration from a Richard Simmons exercise clone
(Murphy again).

The ending is as absurd and unbelievable as the rest
and contradicts the movie's entire premise (that fat people would
do anything to achieve an effortless weight loss), but if you can
overlook all of that and just let yourself enjoy the decent amount
of genuine laughs mixed in with the cheap ones, you might have
a positive (but probably not nutty) experience with THE NUTTY
PROFESSOR.